Page 50 of The Demon Tide

I hit the water like a crossbow’s bolt, breathing it straight into my lungs as I shear through the waves, filled by the reflexive rush of pleasure that merging with water always brings, the more violent the better. I arc upward, my wings folding back tight as the hazy form of the child comes into view, skinny limbs flailing, her mother nowhere in sight. I scoop her into my arms and arrow us both up, through the choppy waves and into the raging storm.

“Mamma, Mamma!” she screams in Uriskal as she chokes out water, her hands splayed toward the river, and my heart seizes as I scan the waters, her mother nowhere to be seen. Needing to bring her to safety, I dart toward our rune skiff as the child screams hysterically and tries to pry herself from my grip, her hair tangled and knotted from the damp, her face a pale blue from the cold. She can’t be older than six.

I fly through our skiff’s shield and alight on its narrow deck as Min Lo hovers the craft just above the dangerous water, both the skiff and its shield stabilized, Trystan’s wand now lowered, the shield holding on its own. His green eyes gain a look of urgency as he takes in the screaming child.

“I’m going to look for the mother!” I tell him as I move to hand her off to him.

“Mage!” she shrieks as she turns and catches sight of him, struggling mightily against my grip.

“Don’t be afraid,” Trystan attempts to reassure her as he gently touches her arm.

“No! No!” she screams, violently flinching away. “Mamma! Mamma!”

Trystan’s eyes meet mine as his expression goes hard. “I’m going in.”

Before I can respond, he raises his wand and murmurs a spell. A thin, watery shield courses over him, encasing his head and torso, before he jumps overboard. Min Lo gives me a determined look, and I hand her the child, then jump back in too.

The next minutes are sheer chaos. A desperate search through murky waters. The raging storm above. Children up and down the river screaming for their parents. Parents calling out for their children and each other.

I pull a Keltish woman who clearly has the Red Grippe out of the Zonor’s powerful waters and help Min Lo hoist her onto our skiff, the woman slumping onto the deck and coughing fitfully while the little girl continues to scream for her mother.

I fly out and retrieve another child, a little blond Keltish boy, pale and traumatized, his teeth chattering from the cold. His father manages to swim to the skiff and is pulled up next by Min Lo. Then the boy’s mother, who is screaming hysterically, “My baby! My baby!” over and over while we drag up the family’s coughing and sputtering teenage son.

And then Trystan surfaces, holding an unconscious blue-hued Urisk woman. Min Lo aids me in easing her limp form over the skiff’s railing and onto the dark wooden deck as Trystan descends into the water once more.

“Mamma!” the little girl screeches, and I catch hold of her before she can fling herself at the unconscious woman. Minyl drops down by the woman’s side, pressing her palms into her chest in rhythmic compressions, then feels for a pulse as the child tries to claw her way out of my grip. Anguish slices through me as Minyl stops, breathing hard, her lips trembling.

No, Minyl, please no.

I release the child, who roars out her agony as she hurls herself onto her mother.

Minyl’s face twists as she starts to cry, then quickly collects herself, roughly wiping away her tears. She stands and meets my gaze, sorrow lancing through us both.

The other rune skiffs have managed to soar back north and are crisscrossing the surrounding waters, their blue lights fogged by the lessening storm, but they do not land. And I realize, in another gut punch of sorrow, that anyone not pulled on board by now is likely dead.

Trystan’s head breaks through the water, a blond Keltish baby in his arms that sputters and then begins to cry at the top of their lungs. I rush to the skiff’s edge and take the baby, hand the child off to Min Lo, then grab firm hold of Trystan’s hand, lightning crackling through our arms as I hoist him on board.

Everyone on the skiff recoils.

“Crow!” the little boy cries, scuttling back against the boat’s side.

“Stay back!” the teenage boy warns, fists balled as he springs to his feet, his eyes wide with evident terror. “I’ll kill you if you hurt us!”

The sick woman slumped on the skiff’s floor cries out and raises her hands protectively in front of her, as if a monster has just come on board.

“Why are you working with a Crow?” the man cries to Min Lo as he pulls a knife and positions himself in front of his family, his wife hugging the baby now in her arms, fierce conflict in her gaze.

“You killed her!” the little girl screams as she clutches her dead mother, her face a mask of devastation as she levels her blue gaze at Trystan with blistering hate.

A piece of my own heart shatters for the child as I realize what’s happening. How she must imagine that this storm is Mage-wrought and that Trystan’s magery drowned her mother.

Trystan takes in the dead, blue-haired woman splayed out before the child and his internal power comes apart, his control breaking, a jagged blast of his lightning aura flashing through me. He steps backward near the skiff’s edge, drops his wand and raises his palms.

It happens so fast, I’m unable to prevent it.

The teenage Kelt growls as he surges forward and pushes Trystan clear off the boat.

Trystan

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